48
" The savage rushing of the river seemed to be inside her head, inside her body. Even when the oarswomen, their guides, were speaking to her, she had the impression she couldn't quite hear them because of the roar. Not of the river that did indeed roar, just behind them, close to the simple shelter they'd made for her, but because of an internal roar as of the sound of a massive accumulation of words, spoken all at once, but collected over a lifetime, now trying to leave her body. As they rose to her lips, and in response to the question: Do you want to go home? she leaned over a patch of yellow grass near her elbow and threw up.
All the words from decades of her life filled her throat. Words she had said or had imagined saying or had swallowed before saying to her father, dead these many years. All the words to her mother. To her husbands. Children. Lovers. The words shouted back at the television set, spreading its virus of mental confusion.
Once begun, the retching went on and on. She would stop, gasping for breath, rest a minute, and be off again. Draining her body of precious fluid... Soon, exhausted, she was done.
No, she had said weakly, I don't want to go home. I'll be all right now. "
― Alice Walker , Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart
49
" Where everything is words, you'd think I'd have some mastery and know my way around, but all this churning hatred, each man a verbal firing squad, immeasurable suspicions, a flood of mocking, angry talk, all of life a vicious debate, conversations in which there is nothing that cannot be said...no, I'd be better off in the jungle, I thought, where a roar's a roar and no one is hard put to miss its meaning. "
― Philip Roth , Operation Shylock: A Confession
58
" Lots of people are born into lives that feel like a journey in the very middle of a big ship on familiar seas; they sit comfortably, crossing their legs, they know when the sun will rise and when the moon will wane, they have plans that they follow, they have a map! But then there are those of us, a few, who are born into lives that feel like standing at the very top of the ship's stern; we have to stand up, hold on tight for dear life, we never know when the waves will rock and we never know where the sun will set or when the moon will wane! Nothing follows the laws of common nature and we live in a wild, wild awakening and the only map we have is the map of the stars! We're called to see the lighting tear at the horizon, we're chosen to roar with the tempests, but we're also the first ones to see the suns rise, the first ones to watch the moons form anew! There is nothing ordinary, nothing at all. But neither are we! And we wouldn't want it any other way! "
― C. JoyBell C.
59
" I want to move my hands, but they’re fused to his rib cage. I feel his lung span, his heartbeat, his very life force wrapped in these flimsy bars of bone. So fragile yet so solid. Like a brick wall with wet mortar. A juxtaposition of hard and soft.
He inhales again. “Jayme,” he says my name with a mix of sigh and inquiry.
I open my eyes and peer into his flushed face. Roses have bloomed on his ruddy cheeks and he looks as though he’s raced the wind.
“Mm?” I reply. My mind is full of babble, I’m so high.
“Jayme,” he’s insistent, almost pleading. “What are you?”
Instantaneous is the cold alarm that douses the flames still dancing in my heart. I feel the nervousness that whispers through me like a cool breeze in the leaves.
“What do you mean?” I ask, the disquiet wringing the strength from my voice.
“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” he explains, inhaling deeply.
I feel the line of a frown between my brows. Gingerly, I lift the hem of his shirt. And as sure as I am that the world is round and that the sky is, indeed, blue the bruises and welts on his torso have faded to nothingness, the golden tan of his skin is sun-kissed perfection. Panic has me frozen as I stare.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper.
He looks down at his exposed abdomen. “I think you healed me.”
He says it so simply, but my mind takes his words and scatters them like ashes. I feel like I’m waking from a coma and I have amnesia and everyone speaks Chinese.
I can’t speak. If I had the strength to, I wouldn’t have the words. I feel the panic flood into me and fear spiked adrenaline courses through me, I shove him. Hard.
Eyes wide with shock, he stumbles back a few steps. A few steps is all I need. Fight or flight instinct taking root, I fight to flee. The space between us gives me enough room to slide out from between him and the car.
He shouts my name. It’s too late.
I’m running a fast as my lithe legs will carry me. My Converse pound the sidewalk and I hear the roar of his engine. It’s still too late. I grew up here and I’m ten blocks from home. No newbie could track me in my own neighborhood. In my town. Not with my determination to put as much distance as I can between me and the boy who scares the shit out of me. Not when I’ve scared the shit out of myself.
I run.
I run and I don’t stop. "
― Elden Dare , Born Wicked (The Wicked Sorcer Series #1)